August General Meeting Approves Temporary
OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE PARK SLOPE FOOD COOP Established 1973 Volume OO, Number 14 September 8, 2020 August General Meeting New Directions for the Old Stone House Approves Temporary Markup Increase By Christopher Cox t the fourth General Meeting conduct- Aed via video, members voted in favor of a temporary increase in the standard mark- up applied to all products sold at the Coop, responding to the sharp drop in overall reve- nue during the pandemic. The meeting, held at 7:15 p.m. on August 25, was attended by 451 member-owners. They voted 368 to 63 to PHOTOS BY CAROLINE MARDOK increase the markup from 21 to 25 percent, though individual members will be able to opt By Frank Haberle out of the price increase. ong before there was a Park Slope Food Coop (or a Park Receiving Coordinator Margie Lempert, LSlope neighborhood, or for that matter, any “Slope” at all) who presented the plan for the increase along there was the Old Stone House. In 1699, Dutch settlers built with General Coordinator Joseph Szladek, a little stone farmhouse by a marsh, on land that had been argued that the increase could be implement- occupied and used by the Lenape tribe for thousands of years. ed immediately, which would help reduce the In August 1776, during the Battle of Long Island, a key battle in Coop’s losses, currently averaging $85,000 a ILLUSTRATION BY CATY BARTHOLOMEW the American Revolutionary War, this small building became week. Unlike other strategies to limit losses, the focal point of the battle, changing hands between the such as reintroducing member labor, or poten- costs this year—mostly due to the suspension British and the Americans several times, as the Continental tial ways of raising revenue, such as increas- of member labor, which required the hiring of army slipped over the Gowanus.
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